


Nightmare

by greyvvardenfell



Series: The Gold to My Silver [17]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25251172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/greyvvardenfell
Summary: Zevran has a nightmare.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Brosca
Series: The Gold to My Silver [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764202
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Nightmare

A simple slab of marble and a carved inscription. She deserved so much more than that. 

_Reydis Brosca_   
_9:06-9:31 Dragon_   
_The Hero of Ferelden_

How cruel, to reduce her to three lines engraved in the stone from which she came. No likeness of her stood nearby; she had so despised her appearance. Zevran, as much as he disagreed, swore to her memory he would honor that. She lived only in his thoughts now, as a shy smile and the ghost of strong arms around him. Every rustle of aspen leaves reminded him of their first night together, on the outskirts of the Brecilian Forest. Every flash of sunlight from a windowpane or guard’s cuirass reminded him of her sleek black dragonbone plate, a constant presence at his side. 

It wasn’t meant to end like this. They’d prepared. They’d agreed to Morrigan’s deal and Alistair, Warden-Commander now, had done the deed. Reydis had wept in Zevran’s arms that night, allowing her fear to show, and he had promised everything would be alright, hiding his own tears in her neck as they clung to each other. 

More fool him, for trusting that his love would be enough.

Every night, he saw the mangled wreck of her body, fused to that signature platemail from the heat of the Archdemon’s mouth. Every night, he smelled the singed hair, the flesh, the coppery bite of blood. Every night, he remembered how empty her eyes were when he fell to his knees next to her, braving the fire and death throes of the creature she’d ended to be with her one last time. And he thanked her Ancestors that, at the very least, she could no longer see him cry.

He sought her first in dreams, before the sparkle of lyrium in a potion-seller’s stall reminded him that dwarves couldn’t feel the Fade. Any remaining piece of her would be barred from his own shattered remains, no matter how desperately he searched. Then he sought her elsewhere, in the savage pleasure of a Crow’s dying gasp and in the silence of the moonlight glimmering on fresh-fallen snow and at the bottom of a bottle, and another, and another. He had tried to seek her in soft skin and clandestine kisses, but she was further from him than ever when he opened his eyes to an unfamiliar face.

She wouldn’t have wanted him to stumble like this. She wouldn’t have wanted him to give in to the hopelessness that sucked at his every thought, beckoning him deeper into the promise of peace at last. _Don’t waste your time on me_ , she would’ve said, like any of the time he’d spent with her had been wasted. 

And he would laugh, again, a cruel sound, and tell her that people couldn’t always get what they wanted.

The first year passed in a blur. The second and third were worse. By the fifth ascent of those tower steps, eager to sleep at her side once more, he wondered why he bothered climbing down when the fall would be so much easier. By the tenth, he cursed how quickly they forgot, how the moss grew over her name and obscured her sacrifice to the few who even remembered where her grave stood. He brought Rica and Endrin the year after that, hating the echoes of her he could see in the way her sister moved and spoke. He choked on his tears when Endrin called him “Uncle.”

She wouldn’t recognize him now, he thought. He’d aged for her and himself. They called him the Black Shadow in Antiva, for the darkness that leaked from his heart into the lines of his face. The Crows were gone. Rinna and Taliesen, gone. Alistair, gone, lost to the Fade to save Inquisitor Adaar. Leliana, lost to the infighting of the Inquisition. Wynne, for all the prodding she’d done to prevent him and Reydis from getting close, lost in another act of selfless sacrifice. Morrigan, Sten, Shale… Zevran hadn’t heard from any of them in years. Whether they remembered her or not, he couldn’t say.

No one would remember her like he did.

How much could one man be expected to lose, he wondered, running his calloused hands over the marble as he had countless times before. How often can a heart rebuild itself before it is no longer a heart, but a scar? How long would he have to push on before he could rest, finally sink beneath the waves that had been licking at his heels since the moment he let go of her smoking, molten hand?

“At least one more, _mi amora_ ,” he whispered, kissing her name. “At least one more.”

\-----

In the quiet of pre-dawn, Zevran stared past the ancient, gnarled olive tree that stood guard over their cottage. Beyond it, the plains rolled up to white cliffs, then dropped into Rialto Bay. Midway to the horizon to the south, Antiva City began to light up with the first fires of the morning as bakers reached their shops and heralds met to learn the announcements of the day. 

The last of the night’s stars fractured into orbs, unfocused by a fresh wash of tears. He did his best to stifle himself: it was only a dream. It had been so clear, so exquisitely sharp and cruel and painful, like a knife between his ribs, but it was only a dream. He still felt the carved letters beneath his fingertips, gaping like wounds in the unfeeling marble. He heard his own voice, grown harsh over harsher years, make another promise he couldn’t keep to a memory that couldn’t hear him. The weight of all the lives he’d watched flicker out, as surely as the sun set, rested on his shoulders, in spite of the cheerful letter open on the desk on the other side of the room, penned by Divine Victoria herself and signed with news of the rest. 

“Zev?”

His name, murmured in a voice he never thought he’d hear again, clouded by sleep.

“Oh, Reydis…” He turned back to her, away from the window and the early morning beyond. 

“What’s wrong?”

Perhaps she could sense his strain in the roughness of his words, the constriction of his throat. But he crawled into bed again, curling himself into her warm, plush body, and only sighed in response.

“Again, huh?”

She knew. She always knew. “It was worse than the last. Rica was there, this time. And little Endrin.”

“Zevvy…”

“He called me ‘uncle.’”

Reydis wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, his eyelashes, the side of his nose. “You are his uncle.”

“I wasn’t, then.”

There was nothing to say to that. Zevran stroked her hair away from the vicious scar across the right side of her face, bisecting her casteless brand and sealing her empty eye socket. 

“I love you,” Reydis said softly, pressing another kiss to his neck.

More tears dripped down the bruise-dark crescents his sleepless night had grown beneath his eyes. But he smiled and pulled her closer. She did love him. And she’d had over thirty years now to tell him so every time he awoke with a nightmare still holding his throat closed. The Fade could only threaten him so much before, as she always had, Reydis would step in and free him. 

If there was such a thing as peace, he had found it. At long last.


End file.
